With just a few household chemicals you can turn a glass of colored liquid into a froth that overflows its container.

What you need:

1 tablespoon(15 cm3 ) of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate)

1 tablespoon (15 cm3) of laundry detergent

about 3/4 cup (180 milliliters) of water

about 1/4 cup (60 milliliters) of vinegar

several drops of food coloring (optional)

a 12-ounce (400-milliliter) drinking glass

a waterproof (plastic or metal) tray

a teaspoon

What to do:

Place the drinking glass on the tray. Put 1 Tablespoon baking soda and 1 Tablespoon laundry detergent to the glass. Add 3/4 Cup of water and a few drops of optional food coloring. Gently stir the mixture to mix the contents of the glass. To display and observe the fizzing and foaming, quickly pour the 1/4 cup of vinegar into the 12 Ounce glass. The mixture will foam up and over the top of the glass, covering the tray with a froth of tiny bubbles.

Additional things you can do:

To produce a color change when the vinegar is added to the mixture in the glass, you can substitute some red cabbage juice for the optional food coloring. With red cabbage juice, the mixture will change color from blue-green before adding vinegar to red-orange after the vinegar is added. For a different color change, try grape juice.

Why

In this experiment, the fizz is produced by a chemical reaction between baking soda and vinegar. Baking soda and vinegar react, and one of the products of the reaction is carbon dioxide gas. This gas forms bubbles that are surrounded by the liquid. The laundry detergent makes the bubbles last longer, and a foam is produced. The volume of the gas produced and trapped in the foam is much greater than the glass can hold, so some of it spills over the top of the glass.

The reaction of sodium bicarbonate to form carbon dioxide gas is the basis of its use as a leavening agent in baking. Cakes are solid foams. The foam is produced when bubbles of carbon dioxide from the reaction of sodium bicarbonate are trapped in the batter. As the cake bakes, the batter dries, and the trapped bubbles of carbon dioxide form the holes in the cake